---
title: "How Contact Forms work in Joomla 3.1"
description: "If you've been following our tutorial series on using the Contacts Component in Joomla 3.0, then you're now ready to review how the actual contact form works. The contact form was created when we..."
url: https://www.inmotionhosting.com/support/edu/joomla/joomla-3/understanding-contact-pages/
date: 2012-11-27
modified: 2021-08-16
author: "Brad Markle"
categories: ["Joomla", "Joomla 3"]
tags: ["Joomla v3"]
type: post
lang: en
---

# How Contact Forms work in Joomla 3.1

If you’ve been following our tutorial series on using the [Contacts Component](/support/website/clear-browser-cache-android/) in Joomla 3.0, then you’re now ready to review how the actual contact form works. The contact form was created when we setup a Contacts menu item (which we did in our [last tutorial](/support/edu/joomla/joomla-3/menu-item/)).

## Form Values

The contact form by default contains the following fields:

- Name
- Email
- Subject
- Message
- Send a copy to yourself

By default, all fields are mandatory except for the *Send copy to yourself* option.

## Sending the Form

In our testing, we entered the following values into the form:

**[![filling-out-the-contact-form](https://www.inmotionhosting.com/support/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/edu_joomla-3_components_contacts_filling-out-the-contact-form.jpg)](/support/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/edu_joomla-3_components_contacts_filling-out-the-contact-form.jpg)**

****

**Name**: *Brad Markle*

**Email**: *myemail@yahoo.com*

**Subject**: *Testing your contact form*

**Message**:

*Hi “Student A”,*

*This message is being sent to you using the contact form on your website.*

*I hope you get this message.*

*Thanks,*

*– Brad*

 
After filling out the details of the message and clicking send, the page reloads and the following message appears to the user:*

*

**Message**

*Thank you for your email.*

You can change which page is loaded after the user submits the message, [click here](/support/edu/joomla/joomla-3/contact-redirect/) to find out how.

## Receiving the Form

[![thunderbird-screenshot](https://www.inmotionhosting.com/support/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/edu_joomla-3_components_contacts_thunderbird-screenshot.jpg)](/support/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/edu_joomla-3_components_contacts_thunderbird-screenshot.jpg)

In our testing, the contact form we used was for **Student A**. Their Joomla username was *j_appleseed* and their email address on file was *user2@domain.com*. None of this information though was included in the email sent to *Student A* after the contact form was submitted.

The screenshot to the right shows the message Student A received (in Thunderbird – their email client) after the contact form was submitted on the site:

 
There is actually a lot of information in the screenshot that can be changed. Below we’ll list a few pieces of data and where they are taken from:

`**Email SUBJECT: **InMotion Hosting: Testing your contact form`

*• InMotion Hosting* is the [Site Name](/support/edu/joomla/joomla-3/modify-site-name/) that we setup in the Global Configuration.

• *Testing your contact form* was the Subject that we typed in the contact form.

`**Email FROM:** Best Website Ever <do-not-reply@domain.com>`

• *Best Website Ever* is the From Name we setup in the *Server – Global Configuration* settings under [Mail Settings](/support/email/change-email-settings-2/).

• *do-not-reply@domain.com* as another setting configured in the Mail Settings. It is the From email setting.